I
have been tinkering with Photoshop for a while. I started to get serious
with Photoshop when I was using version 5.5, but I am currently using
Photoshop 7 but will probably bestir myself to upgrade to Photoshop
CS soon.

I
first learned about Photoshop when I worked as a professional photo
retoucher. However, at the lab where I worked we didn't use Photoshop.
Instead we used special photo dyes and painted directly on the prints.
It could be painstaking at times. That's why Photoshop is so
exciting to me - something that could take hours with dyes and
brushes takes mere minutes with Photoshop!

Most
of the techniques I show here are geared more towards "traditional"
retouching tasks. But I am enjoying branching out, and exploring more
of Photoshop's capabilities!

Please note: These are not "advanced" techniques
I am showing, by any means. But a person who is familiar with the Photoshop
interface will benefit most from some of these tutorials.

My
model for some of these Photoshop exercises is my friend Bill. I had some
good pictures of him, and I thought I might as well use them for my Photoshop
practice!

To the right is
a picture of Bill, as it was originally scanned. As you can see, it
is too dark, and too blue. The scan was pretty bad, actually! But I
like the picture, since it has Bill (who is a patriotic fellow) looking
at the flag against a nice cloudy blue sky. The photo has possibilities...

Too
dark, too blue...

Much better!

I decided that
the thing to emphasize in the picture was Bill, and the flag. So,
I made a copy of the picture on a new layer, and turned the original
layer (so it was no longer visible). I then extracted Bill from the
original background using several selection and extraction tools in
Photoshop (mostly the Magic Wand). I used Curves and Levels to adjust
his contrast and color, so he doesn't look so dark and murky.

On another new
layer, I made some generic clouds with Photoshop's "Render"
filter, and put it behind Bill's layer. I then found a stock photo
of a flag. I put on its own layer, lowered the opacity, and blurred
it a little so it looks like it is in the distance. I plop them
all in together, and voilà! A nice picture of Bill and flag,
without the confusion and distraction that was in the original photo!

Hey,
this picture belongs in my Yosemite Photos section! Well, it will
eventually end up there, I am sure... (This scene is from Yosemite
Valley.)

I
had scanned some Yosemite slides a few years ago, when I had a bad
scanner, and bad software. (Plus, I didn't really know what I was
doing!) I ended up with these extremely dim, blue images. I
set the scanned files aside, hoping I'd be able to salvage them later,
when my software skills increased.

I
will confess that I don't think the "after" picture is quite
"there" yet - I think I could do more with it. Or better
yet, I should just re-scan the original slide!

I
gave some contrast (and got out some of the blue) by using Levels
and Curves. I adjusted the Color Balance, putting some more red and
yellow in the picture. I selected the trees, foreground, and background
rocks all at separate times, (feathering each selection by a few pixels)
and adjusted their color and contrast as I saw fit. This was tricky
at times, and required me to do a little airbrush retouching to fix
up trouble spots within each selected area. Another way to fix the
trees and background rocks would be to make an Adjustment Layer (perhaps
of Levels) to get the trees, etc. the way I liked. Then, apply a mask
to the Adjustment Layer, "erasing" everything but the now-corrected
rocks and trees. Voilà! There are so many different ways to
color correct in Photoshop!

Frankly,
I am amazed that the picture ended looking as good as it does. I now
consider it "passable". The original photo was so
blue, and so dim - I just didn't think there was anything
left there to salvage! But that is the wonder of Photoshop.